"I, and my companions," Deborah said, gesturing to her side of the table and in the direction of those seated behind her, "are all members of an association that has been called the Others or the New People—an association that for many years has been subverting a variety of commercial and financial entities—primarily, although not exclusively, on this planet—for our own purposes."
She paused now, to turn her now neutral gaze on Bleys.
"I won't introduce all of my companions at this time," she said. "We don't intend to be deceptive, and you may ask any of us to identify ourselves further, at any time." She nodded, as if silently emphasizing some point to herself; and then turned her attention back to the people across the tables.
"As I told you in preparation for this meeting," she said, her eyes now on the elderly woman directly across from her, "the people at the head table are, in order, Pallas Salvador, Bleys Ahrens and Antonia Lu—all of whom have been mentioned in the reports you've gotten from us."
Her eyes moved along the row of faces opposite her as if she were ticking them off a list.
"Behind the head table," she continued, "are a group of Others—members of the Others' organization led by Bleys Ahrens. For the sake of clarity, I will refer to their group as Others, and to my own group as New People. Bleys Ahrens speaks for his group."
Now she turned slightly, to look directly at Bleys. The elderly woman stiffened again, but made no sound.
"Across from me," she said, "are representatives of an informal group that we—I mean, the New People—have come to call the Families. They are, as a group, largely unknown to outsiders."
Now her smile contained an edge of anger.
"They've been blackmailing the New People for several decades."
There was a stir in several portions of the room, but Bleys forestalled any other comment by leaning forward to look directly into Deborah's face.
"Deborah," he said, his tone stern and authoritative, "you need to control yourself. If you continue to try to antagonize our guests, you—and your people—will be removed from this meeting, and the rest of us will continue without you."
Deborah was silent for a moment, her face blank; but then she spoke once more, seeming to adopt once again the professional manner Bleys had come to expect from Gelica Costanza.
"I apologize if my tone was offensive," she said. "The facts I mentioned were correct, which I believe these members of the Families will verify." Across the table the elderly woman was now openly glaring at her.
"The lady across from me is Serafina Leng," Deborah said. "In order down the table beyond her are her sister, Camille Porter, Paul Tombas, Coley Milan, Fallon Porter, Bree Somosa, Melin Somosa, and John Haroun. Together, they represent—"
"That is enough, Deborah," Camille Porter interrupted her. "We can speak for ourselves."
She turned at an angle, so that she could look directly at Bleys across the front of her sister.
"Deborah has some resentment for us," Camille Porter said; "it's justified, but it can be ignored for the moment."
At that, her sister made a noise, as if about to protest, but then subsided. Further down the table, Coley Milan was not bothering to hide his amusement. Ignoring them all, Camille Porter continued, looking straight at Bleys.
"We here are indeed members of a group that the so-called New People have referred to as the Families," she said. "It's an appropriate enough term that even some of the younger members of our group began, some time ago, to use it. But the fact is that the group, as I referred to it, actually has no name, for the simple reason that it has never had any sort of formal structure. Rather, we are merely members of various Cetan families who have found reason to work together— and you should be aware of the fact that none of us has any power to speak for, or commit to, anyone else."
Bleys nodded gravely, looking the woman in the eye; but he said nothing. After a moment Camille Porter spoke again.
"Implicit in our lack of any representational capacity," she said, "is a question as to the usefulness of having this meeting at all." Her comment was clearly directed at Bleys, and he responded.
"You're asking what the point is in having negotiations, when one side—allow me to use those terms for the sake of brevity, please— can't deliver on anything agreed upon," he said. He nodded, putting on a face of serious consideration.
"We're aware of that potential problem," he said. He had decided, on the spur of the moment, to try to match Camille Porter's pontifical speaking style. "But the same lack of any representational capacity you allude to also makes apparently impractical any other form of communication with your Families. Yet we feel that opening up some form of communication between our sides is vital."
"Vital to you, maybe!" Serafina Leng burst out.
"Vital to the Families as well, I think," Bleys said mildly. "If any of you think such a thing is totally impossible, then may I ask why you've chosen to come here at all?"
In the ensuing silence, Bleys swept his eyes down the line on Serafina Leng's side of the table.
"We're the ones who asked for this meeting," he went on, finally, in a more conciliatory tone, "and we recognize that places us in a somewhat supplicatory posture—particularly in light of the fact that we're the ones who are new to this planet. However, any lack of seniority on our part should not be taken to mean we have nothing of value to offer you."
" 'Offer'?" Paul Tombas spoke up. "In exchange for what? I can't think of anything you could offer us that would be worth our giving you control of our planet."
"I could contest your implication that your Families 'control' Ceta," Bleys said, "but I won't. Because it's irrelevant to the point of this discussion."
There were frowns among the members of the Families; and in the silence Camille Porter spoke up once again.
"Then what is that point?" she said. "Deborah, in acting as your emissary to suggest this meeting, told us she believed you had something to say that would be worth the hearing. We were unable to conceive of what that might be, but Deborah has proven intelligent and useful in the past, and we were willing to explore the situation. However, thus far we've seen nothing to back up her claims for you."
"Deborah was proceeding on the basis of the things I told her, after we captured her," Bleys said. "Moreover, I'm sure she's capable of making deductions from her observations; and she may have told you some of that, as well." He smiled.
"But can you possibly believe I would share, either with her or with you, everything we have?"
"Still just talk," Paul Tombas said.
"We believed Deborah," Camille Porter cut in, "when she told us you were here to take Ceta away from us—it fits with what you've done on other planets."
"She told you just what I told her, along with others," Bleys said. "It was a ruse, designed to flush out whoever had prevented the proper functioning of our organization here."
"Are you saying you don't want to take control of Ceta?" Camille Porter asked.
"Of course we did," Bleys said. "But we couldn't see any feasible path to that outcome, and so we weren't very serious about it. In any case, we had no idea someone else was already in charge here ... that information totally altered the situation as we had analyzed it."
"in charge' is perhaps not an accurate description," Camille Porter said. "Nor do we pretend to completely rule this planet. But our forebears gave us a position that allowed us to have a large, but quiet, influence on matters here, and we have been careful to maintain that heritage."
"It was that 'position' of yours that the New People ran afoul of, when they orchestrated their scheme to defraud some Cetan institutions, then?"
"More to the point, it was our experience with them that led us to place a watch on your own Others," Camille Porter said.
"By that time, of course," Bleys said, looking thoughtful, "the New People had been under your control for a long time." He looked across at her. "Under threat of exposure, I presume?"
"Among other things
," she said, her tone carrying a dry humor.
"So although Deborah tried to convince me that the New People infiltrated our Others for their own purposes, she and her people were really working for you?"
"There may have been a certain confluence of interests in the matter," Camille Porter said. "Please don't get the notion that we enslaved the so-called New People. We treated them well, and allowed them to keep many of the rewards they had accumulated from their efforts."
"But they were controlled."
"What alternative was there? Uncontrolled, they were dangerous."
Bleys looked along the row of faces flanking Camille Porter.
"Is that what you think of us, too?" he asked.
"Do you take us for complete idiots?" she responded.
Bleys put a wry grin on his face.
"Not in the least," he said. "That's why I asked for this meeting."
"You're still offering some sort of deal, then," Paul Tombas said. "Did you not understand that we're not going to give you our control of Ceta?"
"Oh, I understood that, all right," Bleys said. "That's not what I'm asking."
The eight faces he was watching showed a variety of reactions, ranging from puzzlement to irritation to interest. He let them think about his words for a few seconds longer, and then dropped his bombshell.
"I offer you our help in destroying the Exotics and the Dorsai," he said at last.
Startlement showed on some of the faces; the rest shut down, trying to show no reaction at all.
"I don't understand what you mean by those words," Melin Somosa said finally, her tone making it a question.
Bleys simply smiled at her, and said nothing.
"What could you offer to do against the Dorsai and the Exotics?" Serafina Leng spoke up sharply. "—no, don't stop me, Camille! It's clear this man knows more than we thought, and there's no point in playing games with him!" She turned back to Bleys.
"How much do you know?" she asked.
"Only a little," he answered. "I know that you've been working to undermine the economies of three planets, with the intent of destroying their ability to survive." He shrugged.
"Exactly how you do it, I don't know," he went on. "You can't possibly have enough wealth to carry out a scheme like that by yourselves, so my guess is you're leveraging your assets somehow— perhaps by subverting influential decision-makers in important commercial and governmental positions ... a campaign of small steps, I suppose; but you've had decades to work on it, and moving by small steps over a long period of time actually works to your advantage, by making your actions less noticeable."
He stopped, but no one answered.
"The details don't matter," he went on finally, "although you may not be willing to believe me on that." He smiled, shaking his head just a little.
"But I haven't come up with a reason why you should be taking such actions—it has to have been expensive ... I confess to being intrigued and puzzled."
"Even if what you say is true, I can't think why we should tell you our reasons!" Camille Porter said.
"That would be one of the prices of our help," Bleys said quietly.
"Help? What can you do to help us?"
"More importantly, why would you want to help us?" Paul Tombas said. "I can't think what would be in this for you."
"It's really quite simple," Bleys said. "It would get those two peoples off our backs."
"How are they on your backs?" Tombas asked, apparently intrigued.
"Please don't take us for fools," Bleys said. "You know perfectly well we've taken controlling positions on five of the Younger Worlds"—there were several nods in response to that—"and it doesn't take much insight to realize that the Exotics won't stand for that situation for very long."
"Of course you mean that your group's position now represents a threat to the Exotics," Tombas said. He glanced to his left, at Coley Milan or the people beyond him. "And if threatened, you feel the Exotics would set the Dorsai on you."
"Yes," Bleys said.
"That might very well be so," Camille Porter said. "But why should we care what happens to you and your Others?"
"You don't, of course," Bleys said. "That's a good business position to take—if all you want is to maintain the status quo."
"What does that mean?" Camille Porter said.
"We want revenge!" her sister cut in. "No, I will not keep quiet, Camille! I'm getting too old to play games, and if we have a chance to strike a deciding blow in my lifetime, I want to do it!" She glared at her sister, a glare that perhaps included the rest of her companions, although at the end of the line Melin Somosa and John Haroun, apparently the two youngest on that side of the table, were nodding at her.
"Did you ever hear of William of Ceta?" she asked, turning her face back to Bleys.
"Of course I have," Bleys said. She was referring to a Cetan entrepreneur of nearly a century ago, who had very nearly succeeded in a complicated scheme to corner the interstellar market in employment contracts—a plan that more liberal historians still contended would have resulted in the virtual enslavement of the working and professional classes.
"The Prince," Bleys said. The response was simple, and it was all they needed.
"That's right," she said, nodding. "If you know his story, you know he was on the verge of taking control of all the Younger Worlds, until that Dorsai Donal Graeme interfered!" An angry tone was rising in her voice as she spoke.
"Graeme and his Dorsai used military force to stop Prince William, and they broke him—broke his spirit and broke his fortune." She paused. "Even broke his mind." She glared at Bleys.
"The Prince was ahead of the whole human race at every turn," she said harshly. "He played by the rules of business, and when his opponents couldn't defeat him, they turned to military force!" She subsided in her seat, as if worn out.
"It was vile!" Her voice was quieter, disgusted.
For a moment, there was silence in the room.
"I don't believe William had any family," Bleys said finally. Before he could continue, Melin Somosa interrupted him.
"That's according to the official records," she said. "There're some who say they're of the Prince's blood."
"The Families?" Bleys asked.
"Not all of us," Camille Porter interjected, apparently resigned now to having everything come out.
Toni, Bleys saw, was now wearing an expression very akin to her white-mind face. He suspected it was an attempt to conceal her thoughts, and he hoped no one among the Families was adept in the martial arts.
Toni held her peace until they were back in Favored’s lounge; and even then her voice was quiet.
"You must be aware that those people are insane," she said. "Did you know about them going into that meeting?"
"I knew who they were, from Deborah," he said. "She wasn't aware of their enmity against the Exotics and Dorsai, and I think she was as surprised as we were to learn that those people are consumed by their families' involvements with Prince William's downfall."
"Their fortunes were built on his rise, I gather," she said.
"William was a mercantile manipulator," Bleys said, "and anyone who followed his lead probably made huge fortunes. Donal Graeme was only interested in stopping William himself, and I suspect no one tried to take away the assets of his followers—they were likely well-entrenched in the planet's economy by then, and taking them down might well have caused a depression here." He thought for a brief moment. "And like many plutocrats before them, they probably had come to believe that other sorts of power were their right."
"But how could an attitude like that—and a resentment like that—have lasted down decades, and generations?"
"The Families, I suspect," Bleys said, "were so wealthy they never had to deal with the rest of the world. Their children lived in a world in which they dealt only with each other—intermarrying would have been prized, since it would strengthen the connections between the various families even more. In an atmosphere like
that, the paranoid views of the parents were reinforced ... views like that are always emotionally powerful—particularly if they're not countered by exposure to reality."
"You can't trust them," Toni said.
"Of course not," he replied. "And they won't trust me. That won't matter."
"I think I see," she said. "It's like working with fanatics like that Militia officer you had chasing Hal Mayne."
"Barbage," Bleys reminded her. "Yes. As long as I know what they want, I can trust them to try to do exactly that."
"It only works as long as what they want matches what you want," she said.
"I know," he said. "It becomes my job to remain aware of exactly when our interests will diverge."
As they were eating, later, Toni spoke up again.
"I still don't see how they could have had the power to have such a great effect on the situation of the Dorsai and the Exotics," she said. "Planetary economies are just too large for individuals to have much force against them."
"Which is the kind of thing I told you, earlier, about the historical forces," he said. "And you're right—"
"Oh, I see!" she exclaimed, interrupting him. "Because you've been thinking about the historical forces for so long, you had a—a mental framework that helped you see how to handle the Families, too!"
"In a way," he said. "You probably noticed that when we got into our substantive discussions with them, I purposely fed their perceptions of their own strength—it's the kind of thing rich people hear all their lives: how right they are. But as it happens, they did have some effect on their enemies—because it just happened that the interstellar economic system was going in the same direction they were . . . they couldn't have stopped it if they'd tried; and instead, they rode with it."
Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 Page 21